In 2013 race, actress practiced her script in the trenches for de blasio

Back when few others would, Nixon canvassed hard for de Blasio. She wrangled celebrity endorsements, organized benefits and drew on her education activism to champion his universal prekindergarten proposal.

In Nixon’s evolution from a star of HBO’s “Sex and the City” to a newly minted challenger to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, no period is more pivotal than her work helping de Blasio catapult past a better-known and better-funded rival, Christine C. Quinn. People close to Nixon say it was the 2013 race where Nixon gained a front-row seat to political combat in New York and witnessed the disruptive potential of a message about the ravages of inequality.

It’s a script she hopes to replay versus Cuomo — albeit on a far larger stage and against a far more powerful politician, a two-term incumbent perched atop a $30 million war chest. And unlike de Blasio, who was an elected citywide official, Nixon has never held office.

The close relationship between Nixon and de Blasio is particularly notable because de Blasio and Cuomo have been locked in a yearslong battle over the Democratic direction of New York. Cuomo has even suggested the mayor orchestrated Nixon’s bid; there is no evidence he did so. But if Nixon were to overcome Cuomo’s advantages and prevail, it would certainly represent a triumph for de Blasio, as well.

As it is, Nixon is drawing on some of the same supporting cast from 2013: Bill Hyers and Rebecca Katz, two of de Blasio’s top former strategists, are guiding Nixon’s current run.

Back in 2013, the front-runner with an air of inevitability was Quinn, the City Council speaker with an inside track to be New York City’s first female and lesbian mayor. But Nixon, who is also gay, sided with de Blasio instead.

“Most people assumed Christine Quinn was going to win that race and one of the lessons is the arrogance of being on top sometimes results in a terrible tumble,” said Billy Easton, a friend of Nixon and the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, an advocacy group that seeks more money for schools, for which she served for years as a spokeswoman.

Easton called the 2013 race “an important development” in Nixon’s political progression. “That experience gave her a pretty high-profile, practical experience with the day-to-day political world in New York,” he said.

The wounds are apparently still fresh for Quinn. This week, she called Nixon an “unqualified lesbian” who didn’t back a “qualified lesbian” for mayor five years ago. She quickly apologized for the lesbian jab but not the unqualified part.

On Wednesday evening, at a campaign launch party at the Stonewall Inn, the gay rights landmark, Nixon mocked Quinn’s remark.

“I just want to say tonight that she was technically right,” Nixon said. “That I don’t have my certificate from the Department of Lesbian Affairs. But, in my defense, there is a lot, a lot of paperwork involved.”

Nixon, an award-winning actress (she has a Grammy, two Tonys and two Emmys), has never run a large organization or held elected office before but has been a vocal political activist for more than 15 years.

“Cynthia Nixon has been fighting for better public schools, LGBT equality and women’s health since long before Bill de Blasio ran for mayor,” said Katz, the Nixon adviser who also worked for de Blasio five years ago. Katz said the tipping point that inspired Nixon’s run was Cuomo’s comments last year about not seeking higher levels of education funding that she said he campaigned on in 2010.

Nixon became friendly with de Blasio in the early 2000s, when he was a city councilman and she was still shooting “Sex and the City.” They both opposed then-Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s education programs and found a common cause.

In the years after, she has trekked to Albany for schools and same-sex marriage, headlined events for Planned Parenthood and President Barack Obama, campaigned for Al Franken and delivered her own speeches at political rallies.

But it was the 2013 mayor’s race where she truly dove in, canvassing the city with de Blasio when even his backers would joke that he was battling for fifth in a five-person field. Her wife, Christine Marinoni, an education activist herself, volunteered extensively on the campaign, too.

“There are weeks where four or five days in a row, I’m doing something with Cynthia,” de Blasio said at the time.

She would gush about him as “New York City’s Obama.” And her presence would invariably draw cameras.

“Cynthia Nixon was the life support for de Blasio’s campaign for many, many months,” said Jon Reinish, a Democratic strategist aligned with Quinn’s campaign.

In May 2013, Nixon helped organize an LGBT benefit for de Blasio, where Quinn was skewered to the point where her name drew catcalls and skits mocked her support for extending the city’s term-limits laws.

“Christine Quinn was poised to make history as the first gay woman to lead New York,” Reinish said. “But along came another gay woman who wasn’t technically in the race but was a full-time surrogate who could land some pretty devastating punches that Bill de Blasio and Bill Thompson just couldn’t as straight men.” (Thompson was another mayoral candidate in 2013.)

Nixon helped wrangle celebrity endorsers for de Blasio, among them Alec Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alan Cumming, Tony Kushner and Sarah Paulson. In August, Nixon helped produce and appeared in an ad for de Blasio that starred a mosaic of famous New Yorkers including Harry Belafonte, Lee Daniels and the Lady Bunny.

After de Blasio won in November, Nixon became his representative with the Public Theater and was given a role on the advisory board for the Mayor’s Fund. She continued to speak about public education and universal prekindergarten. Marinoni joined the de Blasio administration itself at the Department of Education.

Both have been spotted around City Hall in the years since, and Nixon’s name is sprinkled through the public calendars of de Blasio and his wife, Chirlane McCray, whom she joined in a skit at an annual media show in 2014.

Now it is Cuomo that Nixon is hoping to slay — a far taller task than even de Blasio’s victory in a crowded 2013 mayoral field. Early polls had him down 25 percentage points to Quinn. Nixon trails by nearly 40 percentage points, according to one survey.

People close to Nixon, who declined an interview request, say she is undaunted by the challenge ahead. She certainly came out swinging on her first day on the stump, calling Cuomo’s budget “inhumane,” linking him to the Koch brothers and questioning whether he is a “real Democrat.

As for Quinn, now an ally of Cuomo, she is the one who may play the role of spoiler. Quinn said in an interview she was “certainly surprised” that Nixon backed de Blasio five years ago.

“I’m equally surprised she’s challenging the governor who has the best record on LGBT issues of any non-LGBT politician in the country,” she said, adding, “I think it’s about celebrity and thinking that being a celebrity is enough. But running for office and serving in office is not a flight of fancy.” Quinn vowed to campaign for Cuomo ardently: “As they say, ‘every day and twice on Sunday.'”

Nixon, for her part, said five years ago that she was “not anti-Chris Quinn.”

“I worked alongside her in the marriage fight, and I believe she was incredibly eloquent and incredibly effective,” she said then. “But apart from that particular gay issue, I don’t see a lot of stuff where I line up with her.”

More central in the current race is Nixon’s relationship with de Blasio, who the governor has charged is behind her campaign. “Probably either the mayor of New York or Vladimir Putin,” Cuomo laughed earlier this month.

In fact, Katz said, Nixon was first approached about running for governor in 2010, by the late progressive activist Jon Kest — which would have pitted her against Cuomo eight years earlier.

Among those that Nixon wooed into de Blasio’s fold in 2013 was playwright Jon Robin Baitz, who said that, in hindsight, “It is quite clear that Quinn would’ve been a better choice for this city, tough, fierce, brave and rock solid — perfect for New York.”

“It stings to think about,” Baitz said.

But that doesn’t mean he has soured on Nixon, who he said was not to be underestimated.

“In a race between Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon, I know who I’d bet on,” he said. “And it isn’t the guy.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

In 2013 race, actress practiced her script in the trenches for de blasio

One was George Gresham, the leader of New York’s largest and most powerful union. The other was Cynthia Nixon.

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